


a million tiny little things: the holiday special

by foxbones



Series: a million tiny little things [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, a holiday fic for the romcom trope in all of us, christmas tropes, happy holigays
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-06 08:44:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8743165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxbones/pseuds/foxbones
Summary: because every tropefest needs a christmas episode.a sequel to a million tiny little things set six years later, right in the middle of the holiday season.





	1. in which the youngest swan-mills might not believe in santa

 

 

 

 

“Ma, how fast are we driving?”

Emma Swan glances in the rearview mirror, lifting an eyebrow at her six year old daughter. Ever the determined little person, Gabriela’s brow is furrowed in an expression that is the miniature of her other mother. 

“We’re below the speed limit, Gab. Is Mom asking you to spy on me again? Because you can tell her that the time I drove off with the groceries on the roof of the car was a one time thing, and the rotisserie chicken was still totally salvageable and delicious and she ate at least half of it before I told her--”

“No,” Gabi says, kicking her feet in her booster seat. “How _fast_ , Ma?”

Emma eyes the speedometer. “Thirty miles an hour.”

“And how long have we been in the car?”

“About ten minutes. A lot of questions, Gab. Are you doing your brother’s math homework again?”

Gabi sighs a very tiny sigh -- most of what she does is very tiny, because despite the strapping blonde sperm donor they meticulously picked out to match what Emma described as “like, look at my guns and look at these guns, he is literally just me with a jolt of testosterone and a business degree! Real talk, if I was straight I would bang him, and I know that’s basically just me banging myself but that’s probably the ultimate qualifier” and Regina described as “sorry, let me get this straight, Emma - so I’m meant to allow this sperm to grow inside me because you would, and I quote, bang him which would basically be banging yourself”, Gabi is still tiny for her age and took after her mother in height. 

“I don’t think Santa is real.”

Emma nearly slams on the brakes. “You _what?_ ”

“If Santa was real, he would have to fly faster than a rocket ship and there’s nothing faster than a rocket ship.”

Emma racks her brain, falling on the one old standby that has carried them through the past five Christmases. “Well, that’s because of magic.”

“And Santa is supposed to be nice and jolly but he runs a pet shop.”

“A...pet shop?”

“Yeah, a pet shop. It was on the television. Pet shops are where all these little kids like me have to make clothes all day and they don’t get paid anything at all and they’re all very sad.”

“ _Oh._ A sweatshop.”

“Yes and then the singer comes on the television and he makes a peel for charity.”

“A peel?”

“I think it is a kind of banana. He says this is a peel for charity for Christmas.”

“Right. Why does Santa run a sweatshop?”

“Because of the elves. They are little and have to make toys everyday all year and he doesn’t pay them.”

“I’m sure Santa pays the elves.”

“If he paid them, then they could go home and have their own houses but they don’t. He makes them live at the North Pole.”

“I don’t think he _makes_ them do that. I think they genuinely _like_ making toys all day. And even if he pays them in hot chocolate, I think they like that because they are elves and they don’t like money as much as hot chocolate.”

“Nobody would like that. Would you like to work all day? What if they need money?”

“They probably don’t need money at the North Pole.”

“What if they get sick and they have to go to the hospital?”

“I think they have magic for that.”

“What if they want to go on vacation? Santa doesn’t let them go on vacation.”

“I’m sure he lets them go on vacation.”

“If they went on vacation, then we would see them. But we have never seen an elf because he makes them stay up at the North Pole all the time in a pet shop.”

“Well, none of this means he isn’t real, Gabi. It just means he is probably evading labor laws.”

Gabi lets out another tiny, determined sigh, and crosses her arms. “I don’t know,” she says. “I want to believe in him but it doesn’t match the facts.”

“Trust me, Gab. Santa is real. I have seen the old dude myself.”

Gabi’s eyes go wide in the rearview mirror. “No way.”

Emma makes her expression as serious as possible. “Yes way. We have spoken on several occasions.”

“What did he say?”

“Uh...ho ho ho. And merry Christmas. And he asked about you, and if you were being good.”

Gabi rolls her eyes, once again doing a perfect impression of her other mother. “I don’t believe you.”

“Well, what if I introduced you? Would that prove he was real?”

Gabriela thinks this over for a minute, and then nods furiously. “Okay,” she says. “But only if I get to meet him. And _only_ if he answers my questions right.”

Emma sighs. “No one would ever know you are the offspring of Regina Mills.”

 

 

 

 

An hour and four bags of groceries later, Emma is shuffling her daughter into the living room to get her wife alone in the kitchen.

“ _Code Red_ ,” she hisses, gesturing wildly out of Gabi’s eyesight, and Regina raises an eyebrow from where she’s started dinner.

“I don’t remember all your codes. Is this your period or did you break something?”

“We both know our cycles are synced, Regina.”

“And that somehow manages to not be apocalyptic, yes.” The smirk gives way to something more genuine. “Are you alright? Is this serious?”

“A certain someone is having serious doubts about a certain someone else.”

“Oh.” Regina looks more curious. “Is this about Henry’s girlfriend? Do you also think it’s odd we haven’t met her until tonight?”

“No, no. A certain tiny someone--” She points into the living room, where Gabi is performing surgery on her baby doll. “And a certain, uh, jolly holiday someone else. The big dude.” She pantomimes a hat and beard. “The main Christmas man.”

Regina’s eyes go wide. “She doesn’t believe in Santa Claus?” she whispers, grabbing Emma’s forearm. “But she’s six.”

“I know. I thought we had a little longer, but damn it, Regina, the girl is kind of a genius.”

“Yesterday I overheard her explaining the concept of speed of light to her teddies. I mean, I don’t know if it was entirely correct, but that’s not something a six year old feels compelled to discuss at a doll tea party.”

“That makes sense. Her main concern is that she doesn’t think Santa can travel fast enough.”

“Did you tell her it’s magic?”

“Of course. She also thinks Santa is running a sweatshop--”

“Well, she’s not _wrong_.”

“--so I told her that I personally knew Santa and that I would introduce them.”

Regina hides a laugh. “And how are you going to pull that off?”

“Easy. Mall Santa.”

Regina snorts. “The girl concerned with the physics of the Santa myth is not going to fall for a mall Santa.”

“I’ll just find a really good mall Santa. This is your fault, by the way.”

“How is this my fault?”

“Your genes. And your generally determined and untrusting nature. And the fact she was forming full sentences months before the baby book said she would.”

“How is any of that my fault?”

“Do you remember when you were pregnant with her and you kept playing all that Mozart and Vivaldi?”

“You cannot be serious.”

“I mean, having a brilliant child is great, but Henry’s precocious intelligence seemed less...dangerous.”

Regina looks wistful for a moment, a typical expression when bringing up the childhood of her now-young-adult son. “He _was_ the last one in his class to stop believing in Santa.”

“I’m just saying, maybe we could have cut the hours of classical music in-womb down to, like, two a day, and she’d only be three years ahead of her grade instead of five.”

Regina taps Emma on the nose, smirking. “You wouldn’t change a single thing about her and you know that.”

“Yeah,” Emma sighs, grinning into a quick kiss. “I know.”

Regina’s checking the oven, insanely delicious smells emerging from within. “Do you know what you’re wearing tonight?”

Emma holds out her arms, gesturing down at her flannel over a white shirt. She does a little spin. “You’re looking at it.”

“Emma,” Regina says, giving her a look. “We’re trying to make this dinner feel more formal.”

“I know. This is my _formal_ flannel.”

Regina sighs. “Don’t ever argue that our children only get their stubbornness from me.”

She kisses Regina’s forehead, slips a beer out of the fridge. “Wouldn’t dare.”

 

 

 

 

When she comes downstairs an hour later, wearing an ironed shirt with the pants Regina always says make her ass look like heaven, Emma is more than pleased with the pretty fucking lustful reception she gets. Regina gives her a oneover and bites down very noticeably on her bottom lip, nodding in approval. She’s changed into one of the Christmas outfits that start to get rotation in the mayor’s office around this time of year - in this case, it’s a red dress with a gold brooch shaped like a holly branch.

“You clean up nicely, Miss Swan.”

“You don’t look so shabby yourself, Mayor Mills.”

“Oh my gosh,” Gabi says, pushing between the two of them. “No kissing, please. Grown-ups are gross.”

The doorbell rings, and the youngest Swan-Mills immediately lights up, running to the front door. Emma and Regina can hear her delighted squeal from the other room, and the baritone voice of their eldest son picking up his sister and giving her an in-air hug.

“Do you hear that?” Regina says, mouth close to Emma’s ear. “The whole family’s home for Christmas.” And she kisses Emma’s cheek, and Emma? She just about melts.

Because it never gets old, not when it’s still so new.

 

 

 

 

The truth is that Emma was never really good at Christmas, at least not until she met Henry and Regina. 

Their first Christmas, the one where Emma was still a nanny and Henry was still only four foot eleven and the gazes she kept aiming at her employer were still too long and too hopeless, was strange and new, unpleasantly sticky to the touch for someone who avoided the holidays. Holidays were about families. Emma was not good at family, or being together with others, or memories. Especially not all three together, a very bitter cocktail.

Regina had offered for Emma to have Christmas dinner with them. Emma had pretended she had plans, and sat in the empty apartment all day instead - Mary Margaret was with her family, and there was a Bond marathon, and it was easier to fall asleep on the couch drinking cheap beer than thinking about the past, or the present, a woman and her son who were willing to set a place for her at their table. She especially did not think about the future. Thoughts about the future, specifically thoughts involving one Regina Mills, were strictly off-limits.

The day after Christmas, Regina had knocked on her apartment door. The second time she’d been there, not since the incident with Mary Margaret and the lost condom and the leather jacket, and Emma had honestly been shocked to see her standing there, tupperware in hand.

“Leftovers,” Regina’d said, smiling slightly. Emma was acutely aware of the fact her sweatshirt advertised a prison, and her boxers were not washed. “It’s alright,” Regina smiled again when Emma ran her hand through her hair, speechless, and shook her head. “You don’t have to invite me in. I understand when you don’t want company, and I know you’re off until New Years. I just...thought you might want a Christmas dinner.”

“Uh, I...thank you.” Emma took the container out of the other woman’s hands. “This is super nice.”

“Merry Christmas, Emma.”

“You too.”

When she’d sat back down on the couch later, a plate of leftovers on her lap, there had been other thoughts, new thoughts, thoughts about families and dinners, and things she didn’t know if she was allowed to have.

Years later, they’re hers. And they’ve been hers for a while now, but goddamn, she is never going to take this for granted.

 

 

 

 


	2. in which the honorary guests arrive for the holidays and hoo boy that's a whole thing

 

 

 

 

"Henrietta!" Henry Mills, once comparable to a set of precociously arranged toothpicks in a Peter Pan costume, now stands half a foot taller than his mothers. Accepting a hug from his Ma requires her to wrap her arms around his chest and yank slightly down. She feigns a gasp at the admittedly patchy attempt at a mustache he's grown in. Oh boy, buddy. "Wait a second, you're not Henrietta. I sent a tall boy back to that college after fall break, and this is some tall _man_ in my foyer. Get this stranger out of my house!"

Gabi tugs on her mother's sleeve. "Ma, it's Henry. He just grew a mustache."

"We can't be too careful, Gabi. We have to ask him something only your brother would know. What did Gabi call Henry before she could pronounce her Rs, Mr. Mustache?"

Henry sighs, but his grin betrays his delight in playing along. "WeeWee."

Gabi laughs, pointing up at her brother. "It's Henry, Ma! I told you."

He rubs at his upper lip. "You like it, Gab?"

She shrugs. "It's kind of funny-looking."

"What about you, Ma? You don't think it's totally lame, right?"

Emma snorts. "Are you kidding? The crazy things I've done with my hair in my life. Head hair, armpit hair--"

"Please don't expand on that, Ma."

"Heck, if I could grow facial hair, there definitely would have been some dyed punk beard stuff going on in my early twenties. You can do whatever you want with your bad self, you know I'm down with it. Now, your _mother_ on the other hand..."

Henry winces. "She's gonna hate it."

"Hate is a strong word. She won't hate it. Am I saying you might find a high quality shaving kit in your stocking this year, though? I might be." She looks at the suitcase next to his knee, and then around him to the dark of the front yard. "Did I hallucinate all those conversations where you said you'd be bringing a plus one?"

"Oh, yeah." Henry nods towards the driveway. "She's getting her stuff from the car."

"You're not helping her? Not that it's your responsibility as a man, but as a decent human being and all--"

Henry shrugs. "She didn't want any help. Said she could do it herself."

"An independent lady. I like her already. So, are we going to hear more about this mystery woman, like...how you met? What she's doing at college? Her name even?"

"You _know_ her name," Henry says, letting his little sister take his suitcase from him. "I've definitely told you her name."

"Once? Maybe? I'd remember it if you'd said it more than once."

"I think I said it at least twice."

"That's not very often, Henrietta."

"And she's not in college. Well, I mean, she is technically in college, just not like me."

"Does she go to another school?"

"Uh, kind of. Well, no." Henry has suspiciously turned tomato red, which turns up all of Emma's bullshit sensors to quantum level three thousand, and she's just about to further interrogate the matter when Regina shows up and removes one oven mitt long enough to wrap her son in an inhumanly tight embrace.

"There he is," Regina says, and Emma might actually be able to see the entire surface of the planet recalibrating itself to return its center to this foyer, where Regina has succeeded in getting her entire family under the same roof again. She pulls back to get a better look at him, and both Henry and Emma seem to be holding their breaths awaiting her reaction. "And you grew a mustache."

"Yeah," Henry says, smiling sheepishly. "Do you like it?"

"I love it," she says, and then pulls him back into the hug. Over her shoulder, Henry makes a face at Emma, who shrugs, genuinely baffled.

"Sorry," an unfamiliar female voice says from behind them. "I hope I'm not intruding on a family moment."

Gabi, previously preoccupied with opening her brother's suitcase in what Emma imagines is a strategic search for unwrapped presents, now pokes her head out from the other side of her Ma's legs. Everyone else has swung their heads in the voice's direction.

"Oh, it's cool," Henry says, letting go of his mother and stepping out of the way to reveal his plus one, the mysterious girlfriend they have heard about only in brief sideways references for the past three months.

"Guys, this is Ana." Ana is a more-than-significantly-more-like-actually-insanely-gorgeous auburn-haired woman in her..mid-twenties? Late twenties? Emma hesitates to guesstimate any further up the age scale out of slight fear alone. Like, a very adult woman. An adult woman who is very attractive and well-dressed standing next to their gangly, horribly mustachioed technically-still-teenaged son in an oversized sweater and ripped jeans. Emma has to receive a subtle foot on her toes to realize she is staring in what might be a rude way.

Ana waves at them, and Henry drops an arm over her shoulder. "It's really nice to meet all of you. I feel like I know so much about you already from everything Henry's said."

Gabi looks up at the very adult woman -- Emma really can't stop thinking about how this is like, a _woman_ , not a girl -- eyes narrowed in an expression all too similar to her mother's right now. "We don't know so much about you," she says in her very matter of fact six year old tone.

Henry laughs awkwardly, still the color of his mother's famous spaghetti sauce. "Well, you'll know a lot more about her over the weekend, right?"

Ana drops to a crouch. "I know you're Gabi," she says, and pulls a bundle of candy canes out of her pocket. "And I've heard you have quite the sweet tooth."

Well, she knows how to win the child over. _Clearly._

"Thank you," Gabi says, lighting up as she takes the candy canes. She turns to look up at her parents. "Moms, can I eat them now?"

"After supper," Regina says. Emma cannot read her wife's expression at this time but she's pretty sure there's the equivalent of a royal feast stewing and cooking away in there. "That's very nice of you, Ana."

"Oh, it's no problem, Ms. Mills." Ana gets back to her feet, smiling. "I've got presents for everyone, actually."

"That wasn't necessary," Regina says, still that unreadable smirk. Emma isn't sure if they need to run for the hills or start preparing a sacrificial altar at this point. "And you can call me Regina."

"I'm Emma," Emma says, holding out her hand.

"You're just like Henry described," Ana says, locking eyes with Emma. When she takes her hand, there is no hand pumping, no movement, just...a bizarre soft squeeze. Emma laughs awkwardly.

"I hope those were good descriptors."

"They were."

"Okay," Regina says, clapping her hands together. She gestures upstairs. "Henry, why don't you help get Ana set up in the guest room? Gabi, do you want to show them how you helped with the Christmas lights upstairs?"

Gabi nods frantically, already completely bought with that clump of candy canes in her fist. Ana beams at all of them before following her...boyfriend? Are they using that term? Why does it look like she's more in the market for a husband or life partner?

"Kitchen," Regina whispers, a hand on her wife's sleeve. "Now."

 

 

 

 

"Okay, am I crazy, or is she like...a grown-ass woman?"

"Oh, she is most definitely a grown-ass woman." Regina is in the process of getting dinner served, but the fact she is holding that ladle like a weapon is both threatening and kind of arousing, if Emma's being honest. "Did he say where they met?"

"Never."

"He is nineteen years old. _Nineteen._ " The ladle narrowly misses the gravy, dinging the counter instead. "Where does he meet a woman her age?"

"He was very roundabout earlier when I asked if she was in college with him."

Regina snorts, though she continues to do her trademark combination mama-bear-hiss-whisper. "I think the last time she was in college, _you_ were a nanny."

"Maybe she has some sort of rare disease where she looks six to seven years older than she actually is."

"I bet that hideous mustache was her idea."

Emma grins. "I _knew_ it. God, I should have made a bet with him--"

"This is why he's been so secretive."

"Yeah, which is honestly impressive, because he's never been able to lie to save his life."

"I knew he was hiding something. I can always tell when he's hiding something."

"We have to break them up, right?"

Regina makes a face, brows furrowing. "What? Good lord, where would you get that idea?"

Emma shrugs, feigns innocence. "I don't know, sorry. Just thinking out loud over here."

"I can strongly disapprove but I'm not going to directly meddle in my young adult son's love life. He has to make his own choices and learn from his own mistakes. Even when they are _clearly_ mistakes. Mistakes old enough to rent a car and have a mortgage."

"Right. And we should probably give her a chance. Hear her out. Get to know her, since, you know. We love Henry. And apparently he likes her enough to bring her home."

Regina snorts. "After three months."

"Right? What are they, lesbians? I mean, park the U-Haul, buddy."

"She was hitting on you, too."

"What?"

Regina smirks, giving Emma's hand a squeeze. She looks deeply into Emma's eyes, and Emma gets all weak at the knees and dumb teenage giddy and, well, some things will never ever change. "Is this how you look at the mother of your partner? She was _gazing,_ Emma."

"Well, it might not have been her fault, Regina. I do have that effect on women."

A swift elbow to the side. Not unearned.

"So what's our game plan here? We need to be a united front on this, right?"

"Right," Regina says. She seems to be looking for something in the cupboard, which turns out to be a very nice bottle of merlot. "We can't be over the top. But we do need to find out more about the situation."

"Got it. Interrogate her. Good cop, bad cop. Obviously, I'll be the bad cop who doesn't play by the rules, the precinct's loose cannon but damn it, I'm the best they have and with my tragic past, they know I've got nothing left to lose. And you'll be--"

Regina gives her a look over the two glasses of wine she is pouring. "No good cop, bad cop, Emma."

"Fine, fine. Henry'd be onto us anyway. That's the routine that cracked the ol' Case of the Seventeen Year Old Who Was Not Home by Midnight."

Regina sighs. "Because he'd fallen asleep in his car after a science fiction convention. Those were the days. Now he's bringing home older women and growing out of style facial hair."

"We could always get the six year old to go undercover and collect intel."

"Please don't use our daughter in hijinks."

"On the contrary, hijinks are a very important part of growing up Mills-Swan. Look how Henry turned out."

At this, Regina groans and covers her eyes with her hand. Emma realizes her error and attempts to backtrack.

"Or, _or_ , the hijinks are part of the foundation of his natural curiosity, and there's a perfectly good explanation for why our nerdy sophomore is dating a hot lady who looks older than maybe she actually is, and this is just a natural part of his growing up that we need to embrace."

But Regina gives her an alarming look at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and Emma nods, does her best totally-with-you-wife-pal wink. This probably looks deranged, but Regina has never minded Emma's more deranged expressions. In fact, they're probably half the reason she got that ring on her in the first place.

 

 

 

 


End file.
